Q&A: Question about Intervals in Chords

by Ari 4 May 2016 2 minute read

Check out Mervyn’s great question about intervals in chords and my response.

Mervyn asked:

I recently discovered your website and YouTube channel and I’m enjoying the content. I have a question about intervals. It appears when musicians talk about them they are referring to the root note of a chord as the starting point to determine the intervals of the notes that follow. For example C E G B C (Major 7th Chord) makes C the root note, E the 3rd, G the 5th, B the 7th, and C the octave. I recently discovered a chord or bass line has intervals that occur as we move from one note to the next which are different from what is heard when the starting point is a root note. By analyzing the Major 7th Chord again and this time doing it note by note to determine the intervals,  C to E is a 3rd, E to G is a minor 3rd, and G to B is a 3rd, and B to C is a minor second. Is it incorrect to think of intervals from this perspective? Do we always have to analyze or label them as they occur from a root note or can we view the intervals as they occur from one note to the next?
You have permission to use my first name if you decide to answer my question in a blog post. Thanks a lot for your time. I appreciate your help.

I answer his question in two ways; keywords: musical understanding of a chord, and fingering.
https://youtu.be/gfN0HnQFRxI
intervals
I play my Votan XS Marleaux in this video.
Fretwrap by Gruvgear.
I use TC Amplification.
Dean Markley SR 2000 Strings.
WolftrackAudio provided Sound. Many thanks!

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Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

 

As a bass teacher, I have taught at London Bass Day, Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, SBL, Truefire, notreble… I even ran my own music school for a few years before gigs took me back on the road.

 

One thing to know about me is that I teach because I am absolutely fascinated with the learning process. And I am obsessed with helping others realize their musical potential.

 

When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

 

That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

 

I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

 

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